Three times more enterprises know biometrics can help secure the cloud then use them

Enterprise adoption of cloud and SaaS is being held back by security concerns, but while biometric authentication is considered an effective security control by more than 80 percent of IT security professionals, roughly three in four are not using it, according to new research from Ping Identity.

Security is the most commonly cited barrier to cloud and SaaS adoption in the Ping Identity 2018 Survey: The State of Enterprise IT Infrastructure & Security, with 43 percent saying it is the biggest obstacle to cloud deployment, and 37 percent reporting it is the biggest obstacle to SaaS adoption.

Those using on-premise infrastructure are more likely that those using public cloud infrastructure to have biometric security controls in place, 28 percent to 22 percent. Encryption is the most common key security technology used, at about two-thirds, while multi-factor authentication (MFA) is used by 54 percent of on-premise deployments, and 60 percent of public clouds. Roughly 35 percent use single sign-on (SSO) authentication.

While it is therefore unsurprising that MFA and encryption are viewed as effective, biometrics are considered effective or very effective by 86 percent of public cloud users (tied for third with SSO and standard technologies), and by 92 percent of on-premises users (ahead of SSO and standard technologies).

“This is perhaps because identity federation can be complex to implement if the chosen solution is not architected for hybrid IT environments, whereas deploying multi-factor authentication is often a simpler solution,” suggests Ping Identity Chief Customer Information Officer Richard Bird. “Biometric authentication is still an emerging technology and therefore may not be as commonplace as more established security controls.”

Reports surfaced late last year that Ping is preparing for an IPO with a valuation of up to $3 billion.

Article Topics

authentication  |  biometrics  |  cloud services  |  enterprise  |  Ping Identity  |  SaaS